


The exhibit

by CaptainCrusher



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Flower man meets ocean man, Meddling mom, Pre-Relationship, The ocean features a lot, feel good, fishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-19
Updated: 2017-01-19
Packaged: 2018-09-18 16:09:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9392786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainCrusher/pseuds/CaptainCrusher
Summary: That one day that marine biologist Ben will eventually meet cadet Hikaru Sulu.





	

He almost didn’t go.  
Later Hikaru would consider this fact as proof of how the smallest decisions can have the biggest impact on your life. While other decisions that seemed tremendous in its consequences at the time would eventually end up being meaningless.  
He stood with the flyer in his hand, weighing his options. A friend, whose name he would struggle to remember, had invited him to a party. There was never a shortage of parties at the academy. In fact, whatever day it was, whatever part of the day, there was always a party going on. The day before he had spent dancing at a club in Kuala Lumpur. It had of course been night in Kuala Lumpur. That was part of the problem – it was always night somewhere.  
The week before someone had dragged him to a tiny flat in Harare that had been packed to the brim with Academy students that were all too ready to reduce their exams to a blurry memory. Another day on his feet in cramped, dark rooms didn’t appeal to him. He looked at the flyer again. It was for an exhibit on the ecosystem of the ocean of Bolarus.  
As though to ease his decision, a terrible smell started to fill the apartment. His academy roommate, although very nice to talk to and an excellent bowler when he used all three arms, mostly ate food that smelled like rotting insides. It probably was rotting insides – Hikaru politely enough never asked. But that settled it. It was a cloudy San Francisco day, so he grabbed his coat on the way out.  
There wasn’t a lot of people at the exhibit. It suited Hikaru - today at least. Some Bolians wandered around in a search for a feel of home while alien tourists like himself gawped at the sixteen-armed octopus and the amazing display of the coral reefs of the Bool islands. He knew the most impressive aspect of the exhibition was the holographic rendition of the Chupe marine national monument. When he made his way to the rendition he walked by a few people standing by a showcase on the sea living ants. Just as he was about to pass by them a woman brushed past him and hit his shoulder as she went by, almost pushing him into the crowd. Hikaru stumbled and may have cursed, but when he looked up to tell her to watch herself she was gone.  
He looked around, but couldn’t find her anywhere. He hadn’t even really seen her. He walked by the sea ants and up some stairs towards the Chupe rendition, that was located inside a room with state of the art holographic projection technology.  
While a narrator kindly reminded Hikaru about sustainability he felt like he was swimming through the vast, pink ocean. Small fishes, the size of fists but with jaws like chainsaws, swam past him. As he turned his head to look at them the narrator identified them with words he couldn’t begin to pronounce. Red rocks and beautiful flora seemed to glide past him as he swam up and down the seamounts, without getting wet or needing to breathe. In reality he was aware that he was swimming in place, like a fish on land, suspended in an empty room. The narrator came back to sadly announce that due to the excessive littering of corrosive soft drinks, parts of the marine life had had a declining population for years.  
After another lecture on sustainability the holographic shore closed in on him. The waters became shallower. The red rocks became more and more coated with life. From the microscopic bacteria, shown in enormous, transparent magnification to his right, to the rainbow colored anemones that seemed to want to grab him when he swam past.  
At this level light seem to reach in every crevice of the dark red and black rocks, feeding an abundance of colorful flowers. Some of them, the narrator announced, lived only on this shore, between 50 and 30 meters down. If he reached out and touched the delicate petals the name of the flower appeared in the water beside it, the letters appearing in slowly like they pushed water aside to appear. The sensation of the flowers was almost like the real thing, almost like he really was there. On an alien planet, in an alien ocean.  
Hikaru breached the water with a slight pressure from behind, as the program ended and gently pushed him up on a blackened, volcanic beach. A door appeared before him and the narrator calmly thanked him for his visit. He looked over his shoulder, towards a distant horizon beyond the pink expanse. The ocean flickered for a moment, like an old lightbulb on its last tether, so that he momentarily stood on a hard cement floor instead of black sand.  
For that second he could see someone on the other side of the room, at the door where he had entered. He could see a black wisp of hair fall on a sunburned cheek, before the second past and all he saw was the horizon again.  
He walked out of the rendition and down a semi-transparent flight of stairs towards the rest of the exhibit. Suspended in the ceiling above the showcases was a skeleton of the Bolarus Expalagon – a mammal the size of a shuttle that looked like a cross between a shark and an elephant. He looked at the expalagon and thought about all those beautiful, alien flowers. Bolarus was just one planet, yet it had a richness of flora and fauna that made Earth pale in comparison.  
One day, he thought, he would really touch them, not just in a simulation. It was just a year until graduation but his body ached for adventure, ached to see all those wonderful things he had seen in pictures for real. To actually wait a whole year until he could get on a starship seemed like torture.  
There was nothing holding him to this place anyway. He couldn’t wait to leave orbit.

Ben had the misfortune, or maybe fortune, of having breakfast with his mother that day. She wasn’t an unpleasant woman to be around, his mother, but had the tendency to be late. Sure enough she didn’t arrive until noon. She was characteristically unapologetic while he silently collected his things so they could leave.  
\- It’s called brunch, dear, she said and with all likelihood rolled her eyes behind her sunglasses.  
\- I want to go to an exhibit in San Francisco today, he said. I have a meeting there at three.  
\- You want to blow off your mother for an exhibit? It must have something to do with some small creature of the deep, no doubt. My son the marine biologist!  
She pretended to be hurt and clutched her chest as they walked outside into the bright sun. Ben locked the house behind him. His mother had threatened to disown him when he bought it. It wasn’t an easy, manageable apartment near her in Port-au-Prince as she had instructed him to buy for his first investment. Instead it was a rackety little structure outside Pago-Pago. Ben had defended his actions with it being a close commute to his work at the Federation Center for Marine Life. It was a logical argument. His mother accepted it.  
But it was also a lot about the house itself.  
The way towards the road was a narrow path. On either side flowers and trees sprung up and reached towards them. His mother mumbled something threatening about the possibility of a forest fire, as she always did, when a tree branch got caught in her hair. The house itself had within its one-hundred-and-fifty-year long history been loved, somewhat neglected and now almost been retaken by the jungle. When the path swayed to the right and onto the road the house became almost invisible. Only a hint at a shape behind some trees gave it away.  
If he walked past the shuttle and onto the quiet road, turned left and past a few neighbors, he would soon encounter the ocean.  
But he didn’t tell his mother that he liked the way the roof tilted or how the jungle almost came in through the kitchen window. Instead he quietly hmm:ed and mmm:ed his way through every conversation about the property market in Port-au-Prince and then returned home as determined as ever to never live anywhere else.  
His mother, apparently struck with some newfound guilt, suggested they eat a quick lunch so that he could get to his exhibit. As she explained when they sat overlooking the bay at his favorite restaurant in Pago-Pago, she had been terribly busy that morning with preparations. She looked expectantly at him while with one hand shushing away an attentive waiter.  
\- With what, mother? Ben asked politely.  
\- The preparations for your brother’s wedding! Didn’t you hear?  
Of course he hadn’t heard. She knew he hadn’t heard.  
\- Victor is getting married? Huh… to… ?  
\- Orisa, of course. Stop it, Ben.  
She swatted away his joke like a fly. Ben knew now what this lunch was really about. His mother wasted no time. She leaned over at the table towards him and reached out to unceremoniously grab his cheek. Her many bracelets jangled like a small orchestra of cymbals and her long sleeves just brushed over her newly arrived pasta.  
\- You got to find someone, she said.  
It wasn’t a request. It was an order he had failed to follow.  
\- I’m happy with my work, mother, Ben said and demonstratively took a bite of his Andorian style palusami.  
She let out a sound like an inflated balloon and fell back into her rattan chair with one hand over her chest again like he had stabbed her. Her sunglasses slid down the side of her hair, that was still raven black. Ben knew she dyed it and she knew he knew, but it would never be mentioned.  
\- Your work, your work! Looking at fishes, collecting sponges, silly xenobiology! Your little brother is getting married after four years with one girl. But you? You have your work.  
She continued unstopped while Ben silently prayed to any deities that would listen about release from this mortal coil. Eventually he had to remind her that he had to be in San Francisco soon.  
\- You can come with me to the exhibition, he said.  
\- I don’t want to be a burden, Ben…  
\- Don’t be silly, mom, Ben said and reached out to put a hand on hers. You know you want to come. Even if it’s just fishes and sponges and silly xenobiology.  
\- Yes, yes, you know me.  
His mother laughed at her own attempts at being modest. Her bracelets jangled as she pinched him in the cheek again.

When they finally arrived in San Fransisco Ben was really excited. His mother, maybe feeling guilty for talking down to his work, had embraced the idea. She had spent most of the shuttle ride reading up on the Bolius sea.  
\- Did you know there are 14000 kind of sponges there? She asked with a bit too much zest.  
\- I know! Said Ben, ignoring the hint of mockery in her voice.  
\- Will there be lots of people there? She asked instead while they parked the shuttle. You know, is it a popular exhibition?  
\- I don’t know, Ben said, busy with shutting down the engine.  
It turned out there wasn’t much people at the exhibition hall at all. A few people here and there. His mother seemed disappointed at the turnout, looking around with squinted eyes. While Ben was just glad he could spend as much time as he wanted at every piece of the exhibition, without elbowing through a crowd. He took her by the arm. He noticed she smiled and she assumed it was because of this public sign of affection, but he couldn’t be sure because she looked in another direction.  
\- Look at this, he said. Ants living in the ocean!  
The ants had a big tank where they had constructed a nest out of seaweed and small bits of rock. He looked on in fascination as the ants swam around, determined to construct the best and biggest nest.  
\- Are you seeing this? Ben looked at this side, but couldn’t see his mother.  
He though he heard someone swearing behind him. But where did his mother go? He walked to the left, looking around the ant tank. Confused he walked around the entire tank and found her where he had stood a minute ago, looking like she hadn’t moved. She smiled at him.  
\- This is fascinating, she said.  
\- Where you here all along?  
\- Where else would I be, dear? Have you seen this?  
She pointed at the ants. When he got closer, he saw that they were currently constructing some sort of underwater pyramid out of old bottle caps.  
He instinctively moved closer.  
On the shuttle ride over the Atlantic he had tried to explain to his mother how amazing the holographic rendition of the Chupe marine national monument could be. How immersive the experience was. She didn’t really seem to understand. But as they walked up the stairs towards the rendition, she seemed eager, even impatient.  
\- Do you understand what this technology means for my work? Ben said. We can show people exactly how the oceans work. We can allow people to dive, to see animals without ever disturbing real ones.  
The door slid open in front of them. Inside was an entire ocean, going in shades from red towards pink. They took a step out onto what really felt like a dark red beach, littered with big shells from long dead sea creatures. The sight made his mother take a deep breath – for once she was speechless. As he looked at her, at once happy he could share this with her, the ocean for a second disappeared, as the program reset for a new user.

Hikaru sat down on a bench. Suddenly the legs felt like he was standing in +20 gravity. All the dancing last night had taken its toll. Maybe it had been a bad idea to walk around today. He should have stayed home to rest, despite the smelly apartment.  
He leaned back towards the wall and closed his eyes. He enjoyed the exhibit. But sometimes thinking about all he could see, once he got into space, almost physically hurt. He should focus on his studies. Maybe fit in a party or two. Bury himself in work until he could grab the first deep space assignment he could get a hold of and leave this place for the frontier.  
\- A great exhibit, isn’t it?  
Someone had sat down beside him. He opened his eyes. She was a woman in her fifties, smartly dressed. A pair of sunglasses rested above her forehead and hinted that she had started the day in a different climate.  
\- Yes, Hikaru said. It’s great.  
\- The sea ants were great. Have you seen that over there? She asked and pointed at something further away.  
\- No, what?  
\- Luminescent algae, she said with a wide smile. Maybe you should check it out.  
\- Maybe I should, Hikaru answered.  
\- I see that you like botany.  
He looked at her confused, wondering how she could have obtained this knowledge. The woman pointed to his bag. Then he remembered he had painted his favorite flowers on it. Inside the petals he had scribbled their latin names.  
\- I do, he said.  
Hikaru started to feel like his legs working again. If nothing else he wanted to return to the solitude of his own thoughts. Besides - luminescent algae actually sounded interesting. He got up on slightly shaky legs. The apparently endlessly social woman got up beside him.  
\- I might have a friend that needs some help with taxonomy in her garden. Can I get your name, young man?  
\- Hikaru Sulu, Hikaru answered. Luminescent algae you said?  
\- Over there.  
She pointed again.  
\- Thanks for the talk, he said. What is your own name, anyway?  
\- Demora, she answered.  
\- Nice to meet you, Demora.  
Quick to remove himself from whatever that situation was, Hikaru walked in the direction she had pointed.  
The darkened room was accessible through a door that slid into the wall as he approached. He took a step into the darkness and his eyes were immediately drawn towards the tank. There was no need for artificial light – the light emanating from the organisms was enough to put the otherwise lightless room in a dusk like setting. In the shadows Hikaru didn’t immediately see the person standing on the other side of the tank, also looking fascinated at the algae.  
They both looked up at the same time. Two faces lit up by green luminescence.  
And while all other days just two eyes meeting across a pond of glowing sea plants would have meant very little, at that moment it meant everything.


End file.
